Humanoid
by naqaashi
Summary: They dance at the edges of each other as the world breaks around them.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I have no claims to ownership on either Supernatural, or the characters portrayed here.**

**Author's Note: First off, I'm really sorry about the lack of updates on my other stories. Real life had completely taken over my wording life, but I'm slowly getting back to it, and I promise that every story I've got up is going to be finished, though it might take me a while to get there.  
**

**This set of unconnected drabbles was written for a new friend. Trying to ease back into fanfiction after so long is hard, so be prepared for some roughness here. *sweatdrops***

**Prompt: Try to hold your breath**

In another theology, sleeping with the devil – figuratively – was a terrible thing for an angel to contemplate. But in other theologies, angels didn't have their big brother angels try to bring the American Deep South circa 1800 back into fashion, this time with feathers. Besides, Crowley wasn't the devil. Only a devil. Pronouns made a lot of difference when ninety-seven percent of one's mind was inclined firmly towards the literal.

Castiel blamed the misbehaving three percent firmly on That Human.

And just like a human, That One Human refused to concede his fair share of the blame in the entire Leviathan debacle. No, according to That Human, it was all Castiel's fault. Castiel wondered whether telling That Human that his primary motivation had been protecting That Selfsame Human's well-being would make any difference in the long run.

He took one look at Dean's face, with eyes that burned accusations and betrayal and things comparable to hellfire at him, and decided – figuratively again – not to hold his breath.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I have no claims to ownership on either Supernatural, or the characters portrayed here.**

**Prompt: Your joy is my low**

Trying to keep his promises is a full time job for Dean Winchester. When he promises Sam that he will cut out the world that produced him and settle for a square little house with a square little life, it's just one more item on his never-ending task list.

Privately, he likes to think he's doing well. Lisa is happy, a sparkle always in her eyes as she flits about the house, trying to divide her time between her lover and her son, and a relieved smile on her face when she realizes she doesn't have to, because Dean has taken to fatherhood with surprising ease. Ben, he likes to believe, is even happier. And if there is so much as the smidgeon of doubt about it, Dean picks himself apart and glues it all back in shapes that he thinks will be just a little more efficient at working the machine.

And when he finds his eyes straying to the sky, he drags them back to the grass and the garage. When a prayer comes slipping through his lips, he bites it back till he bleeds. And when he inevitably thinks of a name, _that _name that has been the centre of his world since he returned from Hell, he swallows it ruthlessly back into his gut. He has a promise to keep, after all.

He only wonders how long he'll last before he has to break this one too.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I have no claims to ownership on either Supernatural, or the characters portrayed here.**

**Prompt: Men are meant to be more than the shadows of each other**

He was born an angel. He has been many other things. He has been a seraph. He has been a temporary cave for eager, hungry monsters. He has been a silent saviour and a fierce militant. He has been a madman, and he has pretended to be one when it wouldn't come naturally. He has dissected himself apart as an objective study of the effect of humanity on a soulless ripple in space and time. He has come back together from it all, a miracle of survival.

Sometimes they ask him to pick a favourite. And every time, he picks the man. The body of Jimmy Novak, bursting at the seams with angelic grace, resting against the warm flesh of the human man they used to call Dean Winchester. He remembers the friction of dusty flannel against leather, the rough scratch of a two-day stubble under his fingers as they trace the outlines of a human face. Dean Winchester's face, as he sleeps and mumbles incoherently when his dreams threaten to stretch beyond the landscape of his extremely human brain. Most of all, he remembers reaching into those dreams, the long conversations about everything and nothing, and the feel of Dean's heartbeat inches from the heart of jimmy Novak, whose body he was inhabiting.

It has been a long time since those days, and Dean Winchester is gone, or if he's still around, he goes by a name Castiel doesn't care to speak. But he prays every day to a God that never did come back, for the thing that was Dean Winchester to ask for salvation, just so he can have the pleasure of saving him once more.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I have no claims to ownership on either Supernatural, or the characters portrayed here.**

**Prompt: Darkness surrounds...why don't you open your blue eyes**

Castiel has been running for a long time.

It started when he ran off to Earth on a whim, and once he got there, he never stopped. Up and down the American landscape, back and forth through Hell, to and from Heaven - didn't matter if he had a map or not. He just ran.

It occurred to him, on a rare day when he was running a little slower than usual, that there was a pattern to his scrambling. That he might seem to be moving from left to right or up and down or any one of the hundred thousand combinations of angles it was possible to move at in a three-dimensional sphere, but the sphere had a centre. For Castiel, that centre was one pinprick of dull energy that burned without stopping, resiliently. He had first spotted it as it writhed naked and shrieking in some pit or other down in Hell. He had pulled it out, and let it drag him to the edge of perdition, all the while wondering if he hadn't better flee in the opposite direction as fast as his wings would blow him there.

At some point, probably right after the apocalypse-that-never-happened, he had come to realise how dangerous, how inappropriate it all was. Then he began to run away from that little spot of light and heat, because that was what good friends did. Castiel had only his experience of angelic friends to go on, and it wasn't till much later, when he run so far that he was a living monster-mash-up, that he realised he had been running in the wrong direction, again.

Castiel has been running for a very long time. He runs still, in circles and dashes towards and away from the faint, resilient flare of life called Dean Winchester. And he wonders, fervently, furiously, despairingly, if the day will ever come when a warm, leather-clad arm will reach out, and force him to stop.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I have no claims to ownership on either Supernatural, or the characters portrayed here.**

**Prompt: Second star to the right**

It is a dark and quiet night, except for the occasional curse that pierces through the stillness.

"Damn it, I was sure I'd stashed it in here somewhere!"

There they are, a hunter and a temporarily depowered angel, stranded somewhere in the swamplands of Missouri, mainly because Dean can't find the map.

"Goddamn it, it was right here!" The lid of the Impala's trunk slams down with unnecessary force. The map is nowhere to be found, and Dean is two seconds away from giving up and giving in to the flask of brandy tucked inside his jacket. And then, almost as an afterthought, he remembers the origins of his companion. He tilts his head to the right, moonlight tangling with the dark gold strands of his hair and turning the green of his eyes to black. He has no idea what he looks like to the angel, has no idea that the angel has even noticed. All he wants is a godforsaken map, and at this point, he doesn't care if it's of human make or celestial. So he swallows his pride, because surely angels have some special compass magic they use whenever they teleport in and out of houses halfway across the country, and he asks.

Castiel stares at him. "You want me-"

"Yes."

"-to give you-"

"_Yes."_ It is less an affirmation and more a growl, because what kind of hunter admits he needs directions?

Castiel decides to be merciful. "All right then."

"Thank you." Dean tilts his head again in that way he has, looking querulous and delicious all at once, and just like that, all of Castiel's good intentions have taken the merry road downstairs.

"Second star to the right, and straight on till morning," he proclaims breezily, feeling proud of himself. It's a good quote, and for once, he has managed to get the degree of relevancy correct. Moreover, it has the added charm of making him look smart - or a smart-ass. Either way, in Castiel's opinion, it is worlds better than having to admit that the reason Dean can't find the map is because it had been destroyed two towns ago, when the human had stepped out for a minute to get some pie.

And now they're stuck there, in the middle of nowhere, till morning. Castiel thinks of all the cheesy movies he has seen on motel TVs these past few weeks, and a single, compelling phrase comes to his mind - _anything_ could happen on a night light this.

The angel leans back against the hood of the Impala, inordinately pleased with all of God's creations, and more than pleased with one of them in particular.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I have no claims to ownership on either Supernatural, or the characters portrayed here.**

**A/N: The person who was prompting me for these things was getting really frustrated about the lack of peen. So this one's for her.  
**

**Prompt: You stick it in me**

How interesting, this slick friction of flesh against naked flesh, slipping and pressing and then, for brief moments that were both reprieve and torture, moving away. It seemed to him that he was never more aware of himself, his own physical matter and sentience than in those brief, precious pauses. Then he comes back to himself with a shattering gasp, and he reaches out desperately, wanting to place his hands over his human, his fingertips loosening from a death-like grip to dance frantically over the contours of muscle and bone stretching and flexing under skin that should be rough and weathered - and yet - and yet - it is comfortable as that dirty trenchcoat he wears all the time.

The moment is gone - he does not know when there will be another. He has just the fraction of a second to realise that he has forgotten to take a breath when he had the chance, before he is once more reduced to a quivering, arching wreck, his lips whispering for more as firm, questing lips pass over the most private part of this body that contains him, then demanding when it feels that he cannot endure it any longer, he must have it all, or he will collapse into oblivion and never return.

Then, because Dean has managed to work out somewhere in all the pleading and kisses and eyes shut tight, that Castiel sort of enjoys being tormented, he will stop - again.

And all Castiel can think, when he is not drowning, is that it is such a very good thing that angels don't really need to breathe.

**End Note: And that's it, folks! **


End file.
